Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

John Hopkins: 2.6 Million People Infected Worldwide; Head of U.S. Vaccine Agency Demoted from Position; U.S. Jobless Claims Expected to Rise; U.S. Oil Prices Rise After Trump's Threat to Iran. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired April 23, 2020 - 05:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[05:00:18]

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi. Welcome to our viewers here in the U.S. and all around the world. Thanks for joining me.

I'm Robyn Curnow. You're watching CNN.

So, just ahead, forced out, the top U.S. official working on a vaccine for coronavirus says he's being dismissed for questioning the drug pushed by President Trump. What will the fallout be there?

Plus, 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment over the past month. Many are wondering how much worse is this going to get.

Plus, children from orphanages around the world are unable to move to new life in a pandemic. We'll speak to a new mom waiting to bring her new son home from China.

(MUSIC)

CURNOW: So, it took three months for the global pandemic to infect 1 million people worldwide. But it only took about three weeks for that number to more than double to 2.6 million people. Almost one-third of those cases, more than 840,000 people are in the U.S., almost 47,000 people have died. That's in the U.S.

Now, scientists everywhere are racing to try to develop a cure, a vaccine, yet, the U.S. official responsible for finding a viable vaccine was suddenly removed from his post on Tuesday.

Dr. Rick Bright, seen here said it was retaliation because he opposed a push by the Trump administration to focus on unproven drugs. He said, quote: I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus science, not politics or cronyism has to lead the way.

President Trump says he's never heard of the doctor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I never heard of him. You just mentioned his name, I never heard of him. When did this happen? REPORTER: This happened today.

TRUMP: I never heard of him. The guy said he was pushed out of the job, maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. I'd have to hear the other side. I don't know who he is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: Well, the president is also trying to tamp down on predictions of possible resurgence of infections later on in the year. The U.S. official who raised the alarm now says his message was

misunderstood.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, DIRECTOR, U.S. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL & PREVENTION: When I commented yesterday that there was a possibility of the fall/winter -- next fall and winter it could be more difficult, more complicated, when we had two respiratory illnesses circulating at the same time, influenza and the coronavirus-19. But I think it's really important to emphasize what I didn't say. I didn't say that this was going to be worse. I said it was going to be more difficult, and potentially complicated because we'll have flu and coronavirus circulating at the same time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: Even as the number of case and deaths keeps rising in the U.S. and around the world, the Republican governor of the U.S. state of Georgia plans to reopening businesses on Friday but President Trump says it is too soon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I told the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, that I disagree, strongly, with his decision to open certain facilities which are in violation of the phase one guidelines for the incredible people of Georgia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: Well, all of this now comes as we're learning the first COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. actually came weeks earlier than anyone thought.

Well, here's Nick Watt with that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We thought the first coronavirus death in the U.S. came the last day in February in Washington state. Not true. Now we know COVID-19 killed someone in the Bay Area more than three weeks earlier.

DR. SARA CODY, SANTA CLARA COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT: The fatality on February 6 was a 57-year-old woman. DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: That is a very significant finding. The things we put into place in late January, like the travel ban, the virus was already here by then and probably circulating quite widely.

WATT: Meanwhile, the president plane states are safely coming back, but one model used by the White House now says 12 states, including Georgia, should wait the longest, at least another six weeks, before relaxing social distancing.

Georgia's governor forced to defend even on FOX what he calls a measured step to open gyms, hair salons and the like this Friday.

GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): The fitness owners, I have great confidence in them spreading people out when they're doing a workout. It's not saying they have got to screen them. These are best practices. They could do temperature screening.

WATT: While others preach caution.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): In talking to many local officials, they feel political pressure to open. I get the pressure, but we can't make a bad decision. Frankly, this is no time to act stupidly.

WATT: Some preaching caution to the wind.

MAYOR CAROLYN GOODMAN, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA: I want everything back.

WATT: This is the long time governor of Las Vegas.

GOODMAN: We've never closed down the United States. We've never closed down Nevada. We've never closed down Las Vegas, because that's our job, an entertainment capital of the world where everything is clean.

WATT: In Texas, daylight emerging between the Republican governor, who is expected to soon announce business openings, and the Democratic mayor of the state's biggest city.

SYLVESTER TURNER (D), MAYOR OF HOUSTON, TEXAS: When it comes to allowing something like the surgeries, which will start today, I agree with it. But if you go much further than that, if you start opening up everything, like what is taking place in Georgia, then I think you run into a serious problem of creating a resurgence of this virus.

WATT: A pork processing plant in Iowa just finally closed after pressure from local Democratic officials and resistance from the Republican governor.

QUENTIN HART (D), MAYOR OF WATERLOO, IOWA: I understand the impact that this has on our national food chain, but, in order to be able to stop the spread, this was the best course of action.

WATT (on camera): We heard from the governor of Montana on Wednesday, he is going to lift that state stay-home order on Sunday. He's going to let stores open Monday, and restaurants and perhaps even schools as well. That is pretty much in line with the assessment of Montana by those esteemed researchers over in Seattle.

Montana's numbers have been going down.

Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Thanks, Nick, for that.

For more on this, we're joined by David Heymann, a professor of infectious disease, epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, also world renowned public health expert.

Professor, thanks so much for joining us.

I just want to talk about these numbers, over 2 million, nearly 3 million people infected worldwide. The U.S. has the most infections. But understandably and probably, you know, undoubtedly, this number is higher because we don't have rigorous testing.

DAVID HEYMANN, PROFESSOR OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE EPIDEMIOLOGY, LSHTM: Well, the numbers that are being reported are the people who have been tested.

CURNOW: Yes.

HEYMANN: It's not the general public. So, we don't really know how many people have been infected. We're beginning to understand that from community surveys but we don't yet know that answer.

CURNOW: And it's also going to have to work. It's also going to have to play into how folks reopen communities?

HEYMANN: Absolutely. Most countries when they lock down had a target of why they were locking down and when they would be able to reopen. And those countries are being monitored. And those countries are beginning to set up distancing to make sure they can monitor when they do begin unlocking, that they have a response mechanism in place, that if things go bad, they can rapidly respond and do containment and contact tracing again, that they can -- they have an epidemiological look to unlocking. They're looking where, what geographically or what industrial sector might be the lowest risk so they can unlock them first.

And it won't be just uniform unlocking. It will be unlocking based on where the risk is less. At the same time, people are talking about the immune passport. Using the passport saying if you have antibodies, you can then go to work. This is something really not feasible at present.

We don't understand about immunity. We don't understand whether or not people are producing antibodies that can be detected. In fact, in China, they're not able to detect antibodies in many people who had mild illness.

So we're not even close except new technologies and new labs which can be used voluntarily to tell you whether you've been in touch with someone who is infected or in contact tracing.

CURNOW: So what you're saying it's very early days, still? Still, so many questions on the pathology of this, how it is spread, the contagion, all of that.

You've worked on infectious diseases I know around the world. You've studied clusters. How concerned are you, based on everything you just told me that some of these U.S. states, including Georgia where I am, have decided to open up when the data isn't measuring up what is perhaps best science or best practice?

HEYMANN: Well, the best practice is to do risk assessment and determine whether or not the target that was used when lockdown occurred is being met at least in some geographic areas. I can't say what is being done in Georgia. I don't know.

All I can say a sound approach involves risk assessment and an epidemiological determination of which areas can be open first, not just a blanket decision.

CURNOW: Are you concerned that in some places, politics is leading the way, rather than science? Or is this something that happens every time there's an outbreak, whether it was SARS or HIV/AIDS or even polio?

[05:10:07]

Is that something that is -- has to come with major outbreaks? Or do you feel like this particularly in the U.S. has been politicized?

HEYMANN: Well, you know, there's a technical level of people who work together very well and make rational decisions. And then as you know, political decisions are made, or policy decisions, rather, are made with political input and with technical input. And sometimes, those political decisions dominate, and sometimes, they don't.

Other countries are having the same issues. And what we're lucky to be able to understand is that technical people around the world are sharing their information. We're knowing what's going on in most places. And so, even despite geopolitical tensions and political decisions, the technical arms in places like the World Health Organization are working very well and they're giving good advice.

CURNOW: Yes, and even that's been tied up in politics with the WHO and President Trump. So it seems like it has muddied the water on many levels. I also want

to talk about an incident here in the U.S., a doctor warns the politicians disagrees with them. He's silenced and removed from his job. And that isn't a Chinese whistle-blower who alerted the Chinese government to a new disease but an American doctor telling them the drug they were talking about was not reliable.

There's similarities here between two doctors, both calling truth to power. This man is the Chinese doctor. But we're hearing also another one who had to resign for calling truth to part in the White House. Does that concern you? HEYMANN: Well, I think there are many things around the world that

are concerning in this. When political decisions dominate and when the technical voices are not heard. It's not just unique to the United States. It's occurring in many parts of the world.

And so, you know, what we can hope is there will become a balance, there will eventually be a balance between political decisions and the technical decisions and that the politicians will be listening close to what the technical people have to say.

CURNOW: OK, Professor David Heymann, really appreciate you joining us. Thanks for all the work you've done in the past and thanks for giving us all your expertise. Appreciate it, sir.

HEYMANN: Thank you.

CURNOW: So, you're watching CNN NEWSROOM.

Still to come --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We haven't gotten an email back, a call, nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: Across the U.S., many minorities-owned businesses are struggling to get help from the federal government. Will the next round of small business loans be any different?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:16:25]

CURNOW: Sixteen minutes past the hour. I'm Robyn Curnow. Thanks for joining us.

So, the first round of emergency small business loans has run out while the U.S. Senate passed another package.

CNN's Kyung Lah spoke with to several minority business owners who say they're struggling to get the help they need.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As days turn to weeks and money fading fast, Kim Prince feels that she and her community's businesses are the ones getting burned.

KIM PRINCE, OWNER, HOTVILLE CHICKEN: They're dismissed. That's how it feels. It feels you've just been pushed to the side. You're not deemed essential enough.

LAH: Hotville Chicken in south L.A. is among the small businesses who applied for the Paycheck Protection Program. Hotville is a black owned business in a majority black community.

JOE ROUZAN, VERMONT SLAUSON ECONOMIC DEV. CORP.: It's a dark time for the city.

LAH: Joe Rouzan leads a community economic group helping dozens of black and Latino businesses apply for the PPP.

(on camera): Eighty-three businesses.

ROUZAN: Eighty-three, yes.

LAH: And of those 83, how many of them have gotten the money?

ROUZAN: As of today, four have actually been funded.

LAH (voice-over): Just four minority-owned businesses servicing an economically challenged community, where police choppers are common, but traditional bank loans are not.

ROUZAN: If you don't have a relationship with a bank, that's what we're hearing from our constituents, our clients, is that because they didn't have a strong relationship with their bank, they haven't been able to compete for those dollars.

LAH: Kim Prince just opened last December using her 401(k) and seed money from a local investor, but no bank. She's heard nothing about her PPP application, even as large chain restaurants received millions.

PRINCE: Access to that capital during normal times was already hard enough.

LAH (on camera): What about when you read that Shake Shack and Ruth's Chris got all the money?

PRINCE: Ooh, I was speechless.

LAH (voice-over): Shake Shack returned their PPP money and President Trump says he will ask larger recipients to do so as well.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin defended the overall distribution of the funds.

STEVEN MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: We have over a million companies that have received this with less than ten workers.

LAH: The PPP out of cash now is on the cusp of a new multi-billion dollar funding deal. It reserves $60 billion for banks geared to learning to minority businesses.

BASEEMAH PENNA, OWNER, SUMMER SOULSTICE BOUTIQUE: So we bring the truck to you.

LAH: Like mobile boutique, Summer Soulstice.

(on camera): Have you heard anything? PENNA: We haven't gotten an email back, a call, nothing.

LAH (voice-over): Owner Baseemah Penna set up in this parking lot for us. She's not able to open during the coronavirus shutdown. She hopes round two of the PPP will mean more businesses in her community will get the funding help they desperately need.

PENNA: We have been suffering the most. We've been hit the hardest.

LAH (on camera): In the White House briefing, the president announced that an existing White House council would not focus on targeting minority and underserved communities that have been especially hard hit by the coronavirus impact, the economic impact. Now, in response, we reached out to some of these south L.A. businesses and they're skeptical. They say, quote, we'll see. Words don't matter, they say, until the cash hits their businesses.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Thanks for that.

So, an update, the U.S. House is expected to vote soon on more relief funding for these small businesses.

[05:20:01]

Christine Romans joins me now from New York with more on this.

Christine, hi. Good to see you.

We've been talking about this. I mean, can people -- folks like that lady in Kyung's package trust that they will access some of this cash?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Gosh. Money talks and that's what this whole bailout is supposed to be. It's supposed to be money quickly with not a lot of strings attached getting into the pockets of small business owners just like her and they're having a terrible time getting the money. Now, $310 billion is going to be used to replenish that fund. There's a lot of questions who's going to get it.

There are no restrictions on big companies going in there and trying to tap it, but there's public scrutiny right now so you hope, you hope the banks do a better job of getting into the hands of main street mom and pop companies. There is a provision inside that small business loan for $60 billion to be funneled to smaller lenders like credit unions and small community banks.

Hopefully, they already have ties with small businesses in need and they'll be able to get the money to them quickly.

CURNOW: OK. Yes, but as we also know, a number of those people who did take that money, those bigger chains have been shamed. Hopefully, it plays some part in what's happening next. It's certainly not good PR move for many of these companies if they take the cash.

I also want to talk about unemployment numbers. I mean, again, another indication of just how people are hurting.

ROMANS: These numbers would have been unimaginable a month ago. These numbers blow away the great recession and any other kind of period we've seen going back to the Great Depression. Every one of those numbers on your screen is someone who filed for jobless benefits for the first time. That number, 22 million, over the past few weeks, that erases all of the job reaction of the longest expansion in American history starting in September 2010.

I mean, just think about that for a minute. Tell erases all of the jobs gains of the longest expansion in American history from 2010 until February. The turn of fortune has been so stunning and so abrupt, and those numbers show you just what is the damage in the American labor market from having everybody stay home.

Now, politically, it becomes difficult because those people, all of them, have bills to pay and families and anxiety, of course, about what's going to happen next. And it really animates the discussion about how to reopen the economy and when. You want to get those people back to work. But you want to do it the right way so there isn't resulting damage in more job loss. You know, people going back to work and another wave of layoffs, so it's just a really very difficult moment right now.

CURNOW: It certainly is. As you said, huge anxiety and scary world. And so many people, it's not 22 million people applying but all of those families attached, dependents attached to those 22 million is an indication of how far and deep the pain is.

Christine Romans, thanks for that, live in New York. Thanks, Christine.

So, the U.S. president has tweeted a new threat to Iran saying he's ordered the Navy to, quote, shoot down an Iranian gun boats that harassed the U.S. Navy ships. Now, the threat came after Tehran announced it launched its first military satellite into orbit, and the U.S. Navy says Iranian boats pestered U.S. ships in the North Arabian Sea.

U.S. says the satellite launch used the same technology needed to fire intercontinental ballistic missile.

And Iran's foreign minister said Mr. Trump should focus on COVID-19 infections, affecting American members. He went on to say the U.S. forces shouldn't be provoking Iranian sailors in the Persian Gulf.

Now, the oil prices, though, jumped after that threat from the president.

John Defterios is in Abu Dhabi with more on that.

Hi, John. What can you tell us?

JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN BUSINESS EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Hi, Robyn.

Well, you know, the tensions between the U.S. and Iran drowning out the glut that we've been talking about for the last three or four days in the oil market, Robyn, and for good reason, because the Strait of Hormuz handles the overall traffic oil with the tankers that pass here in the UAE.

So, let's a look at this result of what we're seeing. We were trading $10 for the U.S. benchmark. $15 before for Brent. Now we're up in a range higher, 7 percent to 10 percent, pretty impressive considering the situation of the market. And also overnight, we had another U.S. report pointing to higher inventories again and perhaps running out of storage to put that extra oil by the end of June.

But the politics have changed quite dramatically in Iran. I think this is an important point after the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general, back in January. We had prices going up to $68 a barrel.

But more importantly, regionally at least, in the Iranian parliament, the hard-liners have taken control and the language has kind of changed and they're tempting the U.S. military fleet that's here with the gun boat diplomacy that we see.

[05:25:08]

And very importantly as well, Robyn, the response of the U.N. to the language of Donald Trump was, we're not going to be intimidated by you, pay attention to what's going on at home and we'll take care of our own job and then Javad Sharif has weighed in. But the moderates in Iran are taken a backseat to the hardliners today, and that's why we see this ratcheting up here, the tensions in the Middle East where I am.

CURNOW: OK. Thanks for keeping an eye on it. John Defterios there live in Abu Dhabi, thank you.

So, you're watching CNN NEWSROOM.

Still to come, possible progress in the fight against coronavirus today as trials for a potential vaccine gets under way. So, we'll have a live report from London. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CURNOW: It's 5:30 in the morning here on the East Coast of the U.S. Welcome to our viewers here in America and around the world. I'm Robyn Curnow.

So, our top story for the hour, the U.S. state of Georgia plans to reopen businesses on Friday. That's right, where we are here at CNN, even though the president says he strongly disagrees with the governor's decision because the state has not met the administration's coronavirus guidelines. Many health officials say reopening businesses is now very risky. More than 840,000 people in the U.S. have become infected with the virus, almost all of them, just in the past month alone.

The U.S. death toll is now approaching 47,000 people. Worldwide, Johns Hopkins University has tracked more than 2.6 million cases since the beginning of the year.

And the mayor of Las Vegas is doubling down on her push to reopen the city's casinos and hotels despite the pandemic.

END